GEO correspond-il à vos attentes ? - Les Suds à Arles

the port to shut down. After the flood, everyone suddenly remembered
the Rhône, that it’s a living thing. People began asking, ‘Why not take
advantage of its beauty?’ So it was decided to build promenades and
bike paths along the quays and to develop waterfront neighborhoods
that had long been neglected.”
Developing cultural offerings is the other leg of Arles’s growth
strategy. In 1995, a long-standing project finally became reality with
the opening of the Musée de l’Arles
Antique, which houses the city’s vast
collection of antiquities. Architect Built in the 1st
Henri Ciriani created a contempo- century A.D., the
rary triangular building on the banks Amphitheater
of the river, adjacent to the ruins of seated 20,000
a Roman circus. The blue enameled-
spectators
glass façade was specially developed who came to
by Saint-Gobain to match the azure watch gladiator
color of the sky—“the only thing in combats, small
Arles that hasn’t changed since An-
game hunts
tiquity,” quips director Sintès. In-
and prisoner
side, the clean, lofty space shows off
executions.
riches that include a massive statue
of Emperor Augustus and the best
collection of marble sarcophagi out-
A magnet for artists
side of the Vatican.
and young people, Arles
The museum also enjoys an un-
nevertheless cherishes its
usual relationship with the Rhône.
time-honored traditions.
right: The Fête des Gar-
Over the centuries, this big, powerdians,
a colorful parade of
ful river has served as a vast garbage
Camargue cowboys and
dump—1950s-era Renaults rust
Arlesiennes, kicks off the
alongside terracotta amphorae once
bullfighting season. inset:
The courses camarguaises,
used to transport wine and olive
in which competitors vie to
oil throughout the Mediterranean.
unhook a rosette placed
For the past two decades, divers
between the bull’s horns.
have spent one week every summer
searching for archeological finds in
these dangerous waters with their strong currents, pestilent diseases
and silures, big, nasty-looking fish that sometimes mistake human extremities
for dinner. The visibility is so bad that on the murkiest days,
divers can’t see more than four inches in front of their masks.
In 2003, the regional government joined with the Ministry of Culture
to increase the budget for these expeditions, allowing the crew
to work for a month or longer. That paid off in the summer of 2007,
when they stumbled upon a fabulous treasure trove: Corinthian capitals,
a head of Venus, an immense marble statue of Neptune, a bronze
Victory covered in gold and the pièce de résistance: a marble bust
thought to be the oldest-existing statue of Julius Caesar. All are on
indefinite loan to the museum, and Sintès still can’t believe his good
fortune. “It was like telling the director of an art museum, ‘We found
a Renoir and two Van Goghs in a basement across the street, and
we’re giving them to you. For free.’”
This fall, the Caesar bust will be the highlight of “César, le Rhône
pour mémoire,” a yearlong exhibition displaying some 500 objects
discovered in the area during the past two decades. Many of them
are remarkably well preserved, thanks to the Rhône’s muddy bottom.
Sintès has added a surprising counterpoint in the form of a curiosity
cabinet by contemporary American artist Mark Dion, whose provocative
works question the role of specialists—including historians,
curators and archeologists.
year to keep things fresh. They also
created the Nuit de l’Année, a onenight,
open-air party when photo
agencies and magazines project images
on the walls of buildings in the
Roquette neighborhood. And they
introduced educational programs
such as Rentrée en Images, which
brings in high school students from
around southern France to see the
exhibitions in early September. The
festival now runs for two months,
although the first week is the most
action-packed, with screenings, parties
and special guests.
The results of the revamp have
surpassed everyone’s hopes. Eight
years ago, the budget was about
E1 million; now it’s four times that,
much of it coming from the private
sector. In 2001 there were 14 exhibitions;
last year there were 60. At the
same time, the number of visitors
has jumped from 9,000 to 60,000.
“All summer long, you see people
with the map of the Rencontres in
their hands. They meet on the café
terraces, at exhibitions, they talk
to one another,” says Hebel. “A
festival like this couldn’t happen in
a major city. There’s not this feeling
of humanity, of sharing something
with others who came for the same
reason you did.”
This year, for the festival’s 40th
anniversary, Hebel decided that
the event needed a dual theme to
adequately reflect its colorful history:
rencontres, or meetings, and
ruptures, or debates. A highlight of
the ruptures category is the everprovocative
Nan Goldin, returning
with her oeuvre “The Ballad of Sexual
Dependency.” For the rencontres
category, there’s a retrospective of
celebrated French photographer
Willy Ronis—who, incredibly, has
never shown here before. The many
special events will include a Vanity
Fair soirée, during which the
95-year-old magazine will present its
best portrait photography, from the
Jazz Age to the present. —AS
“André Kertész in
Arles” (1979), by
Jean Dieuzaide.
Les
Rencontres
Fund is financing the renovations
of the lovely St-Trophime cloister.
“Seeing these monuments restored
has given residents new-found
pride,” says Ariès.
The city’s most ambitious initiative
took shape after the longignored
Rhône acted up in 2003,
flooding some 7,000 homes in its
From its earliest days, the
Rencontres Internationales de la
Photographie attracted the world’s
top artists, notably Americans
such as Edward Weston, Ansel
Adams and Jerry Uelsmann. Passionate
fans made the event an
annual pilgrimage, Leicas around
their necks, throwing tomatoes or
setting screens afire when they
disliked what they saw. The festival
revealed budding talents from Annie
Liebovitz to Nan Goldin, who
awed visitors in 1987 with her raw,
radical photos of New York City
subculture, abusive couples and
drug addicts.
But by the end of the 20th
century, the Arles festival was no
longer the only game in town. Cities
around the globe were hosting bigger
and often better photographyrelated
events, while the Rencontres
progressively lost its focus and
much of its public. Determined to
reclaim its past glory, the city hired
a new president, François Barré,
who had run the Centre Pompidou
and the fine arts department at
the Culture Ministry. He took over
in 2002, bringing back director
François Hebel, who had headed
the festival during its heyday in
the 1980s. Together they worked
miracles.
“We completely redefined the
Rencontres—both its content and
its structure,” says Hebel, explaining
that they now primarily host solo
exhibitions rather than thematic
shows, and that they invite a range
of prestigious guest curators every
northeastern sector. Built under Napoleon III, the quays had never
been restored, and some €12 million is now being devoted to rebuilding
them. Slated for completion in 2010, they will not only protect but
also beautify the city. As Ariès explains, “The city turned its back on
the river in the 19th century, when competition from railroads caused
44 France • summer 2009